With every trip to the hair salon, you can do a little more to help the planet, thanks to an innovative new program that eliminates more than 90% of salon waste and diverts toxic materials from landfills and water streams.
Started in Ontario in 2010, Green Circle Salons (GCS) is now spreading to salons throughout British Columbia. Suki's on Granville and the Lounge Hair Studio in downtown Vancouver were among the first to join Green Circle's B.C. initiative this year.
"If the public knew how much waste ends up in landfills from a hair salon, they would be appalled," explained Bill Moreland, Suki's director of marketing and operations.
"We had been recycling for years, but we couldn't find anyone who would take the hair, used foils and paper towels," he said. "Green Circle takes all that away. They'll even take a used Kleenex."
Through Green Circle's chemical waste diversion program, all excess colour, ammonia and bleach are also collected and neutralized, or placed into storage to prevent the chemicals from leaching into the environment.
"Now we have a big two-gallon bucket where we rinse all the chemicals," explained Moreland. "We had approximately 44 pounds of chemicals picked up last week. That's 44 pounds of chemicals that aren't going into the ground water."
Starting in B.C. in June with 30 salons onboard and working up to 60 salons by August, the overall waste diversion to August 31 was 3,658 kilograms (hair, paper, plastic, metal and chemicals), with hair alone accounting for an average of 4.7 kilograms per month.
"It's a movement toward mass collection of waste instead of mass production," explained Martin Hillier, co-owner of the Lounge Hair Studio. "You can't do anything with small amounts of hair, but being able to collect it in pounds ... allows us to create oil booms to clean up oil spills. … I hope it encourages other industries to look into ways to collect and recycle in bulk because so much more can be done than at an individual level."
Green Circle also helps drive additional revenue into salons through an environmental fee of $1.50 plus HST, charged to clients at each visit. This helps build revenue for the salon to fund the recycling program, as well as ongoing sustainability efforts such as installing more sustainable lighting sources, improving hydro flow or purchasing more eco-friendly cleaning products.
"The implementation cost prevented most salons from making these changes," explained Moreland. "Green Circle is here to help salons further build on sustainability which they otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford."
"It's an accountability model that helps build revenue for salons to help the industry meet the emerging green economy," said Shane Price, co-founder and president of Green Circle Salons. "It's making salons be transparent and more responsible since [clients] can now ask what is being done with the extra fee they now pay with each visit."
Hillier discussed the positive reactions of the salon's clientele: "All of our clients have reacted amazingly well to the program. We're only talking about $1.50; you can't even get a coffee with that, but you can help save the planet? It doesn't even really bear thinking about."
To deal with any push-back, Suki's and the Lounge have both developed a policy to absorb the cost, since "saving the planet is more important than saving $1.50," said Hillier.
Moreland added: "Since it's still pretty new in B.C., some salons are dragging their feet to see if the program affects their bottom line. But once the numbers start rolling in, I think we'll see a ripple effect of far more businesses coming on board."
"At the end of the day, it makes you feel good to be contributing to the health of our planet," said Hillier. "Most if not all of our clients are quite proud to go home and be able to say that they're part of a program that's really making a difference to the health of our planet."
"You don't want to feel guilty about something that's supposed to make you feel relaxed and beautiful. So now going to the salon is like a guilt-free service. And it's a win-win for everybody." •
